


In Old Heroic Traces

by marigoldfaucet



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25443601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marigoldfaucet/pseuds/marigoldfaucet
Summary: A small collection of drabbles and prompt fills.I. The Watcher struggles with a nightmare and a memory.II. Aloth is falling, falling, falling.
Relationships: Aloth Corfiser/The Watcher
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	1. Memory

A nightmare is a nightmare and it cannot hurt her.

But a memory is a memory and it hurts, even if the memories are not her own. These are not her hands holding the chains, soaked in blood, holding another’s as they lead to a fall. These are not her feet sunken in mud, crunching over a field of bones, stumbling as _she_ screams and screams and screams and—

_Maren._

_Maren. Maren. Maren—_

“Maren.”

Edér’s voice, soft and kind, somewhere above her. She turns towards him, eyes blinking, blinking. Shaking hands seeking.

“Easy now,” he murmurs. “It was only a bad dream.”

 _No, no,_ she wants to say. It was more than that, more than _only_. Her ears still ring and her heart still aches. Her hands are wet with blood–no, sweat. She reaches for Edér’s hands, clasps them and squeezes them. Tries to remember where they are, why they are where, who they are with. Counts back the events of the day on her ten fingers (not nine, not four). The broad strokes. She focuses on her companions, their faces, their names. The memories she knows for certain are real.

And with remembrance comes clarity, comes calm.

Edér squeezes back, firm and warm and real. Maren clings to it, lets the sensation slide beneath her skin and sink into her bones.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” Maren croaks.

Her eyes dart around camp, moving from the low fire to one sleeping form to another. At least she didn’t wake them. She hopes.

“Seemed like a bad one.” Edér frowns.

“It was.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

 _No,_ Maren doesn’t say, instead: “I think I used to be a terrible person.”

Edér’s fingers spasm around hers. “I can’t pretend to understand what’s happening in your head, but I do know that was another life. Whoever that was, it ain’t _you_.”

Her throat closes around all the words she wants to say, thick with fear and tears. _Sometimes I can’t tell the difference._

“Please don’t tell the others.” _I don’t want them thinking I’m the worst of me._

Edér hums his agreement (and it sounds nice, better than—) and says no more. He doesn’t let go of her hands and for that Maren is grateful. It feels like a tether, a reminder that she is here and she is real.

A promise that the woman Edér thinks she is is true.


	2. The Falling

He is falling, falling, falling and there is nothing Aloth can do to slow it. No spell, no armour strong enough to cushion the blow.

This will kill him. This will kill him and—

He feels a hand cup his cheek, rough thumb brushing away a stray tear. He is too afraid to open his eyes, to look, to see. To see compassion. To see empathy and understanding in her eyes. He knows it is there, without a doubt because he has spent months looking, seeing it in her very being.

She is a good person and he yearns for her, fears her. He does not deserve her. He has lied to her, used her. Held his tongue when he could have helped her own unravelling and now she holds him, his mind, his heart, at the tips of her tender fingers.

He knows she will make the kind choice, the right choice, when he asks her what he should do. He cannot trust his own mind, his own heart in this. All he can do is open himself up, bare the ragged edges of his soul, let loose the last of the secrets holding him up and trust she will catch him.

The brush of a thumb over his eyelid. _It’s okay,_ she says and—

There are arms and legs and body, wrapped in metal and scale and cloth, wrapped around him. Holding him tight, holding him close, changing his fate with a change of direction.

Aloth has no spell, no armour to cushion the blow, but now there is a body between him and the ground. He is too slow to realise, too slow to beg just as he was too weak to hold on.

But she was always been faster, stronger, more resolved

But this will kill her, it will her and—

They hit the ground.

The world stills in ears and fades in eyes, returning in snatches. A harsh breath, an aching chest, tarnished metal and pale flesh. Aloth hurts, but he lives.

He scrapes his hands out from between their bodies, presses his shaky palms against the stone and the grit. He pushes himself up with a cry, half pain, half agony. The body beneath him does not move.

“Maren,” Aloth breathes and touches her cheek, her eyelids. Her lips. Gentle and afraid. “Please.”

Maren stirs beneath him, still alive, still breathing, and smiles a little bloody. “I caught you,” she says, voice a whisper, but it rings in his ears and fills up his chest.

“Yes,” Aloth says, relief overwhelming. “I rather think you did.”


End file.
